“You are quite right,” he said. “It may easily be a sin—and a sign of impotence—to indulge in the refinements of life, at the same time being inadequate to its great, simple, sacred gifts. If I understood you aright, Herr Peeperkorn, that was your meaning. And though I hadn’t thought of it in that light, I may say that I agree with you, now that you mention it. It probably happens seldom enough that these sound and simple gifts of life have real justice done them. The majority of human beings are too heedless, too flabby, too corrupt, too worn out inwardly to give them their due, I feel sure of that.”
The mighty one was immensely pleased. “Young man,” he said, “positively. Will you permit me—not a word. I beg you to drink with me—no heel-taps—arm-in-arm. I do not, at this moment, propose to you the brotherly ‘thou’; I was about to do so, but it would no doubt be precipitate. Somewhat. In the near future, however. Depend upon it. Or, if you insist upon the present—”
Hans Castorp demurred.
“Excellent, young man. ‘Impotence’—very good. Very. Gives one the shivers. ‘Corrupt’—very good too. ‘Gifts’—not so good—‘claims’ better. The holy, the feminine claims life makes upon manly honour and strength—”
Hans Castorp was suddenly driven to realize that Peeperkorn was very drunk. Still, his drunkenness was not debasing, there was no loss of dignity; rather it combined with the nobility of his nature to produce an immense and awe-inspiring effect. Bacchus himself, thought Hans Castorp, without detriment to his godhead, leaned for support on the shoulders of his troop. Everything depended upon who was drunk—a drunken personality was far from being the same as a drunken tinker. He took care not to abate, even inwardly, his respect for this overwhelming person, whose gestures had grown lax, and his tongue stammering.
“Brother,” said Peeperkorn. His great torso lolled back in free and regal intoxication against his chair. His arm lay stretched along the cloth and he tapped the table with fist lightly clenched. “Brother-in-blood—prospective. In the near future—after a proper interval for reflection.—Very good. Set—tled.—Life, young man, is a female. A sprawling female, with swelling breasts close to each other, great soft belly between her haunches, slender arms, bulging thighs, half-closed eyes. She mocks us. She challenges us to expend our manhood to its uttermost span, to stand or fall before her. To stand or fall. To fall, young man—do you know what that means? The defeat of the feelings, their overthrow when confronted by life—that is impotence. For it there is no mercy, it is pitilessly, mockingly condemned.—Not a word, young man! Spewed out of the mouth. Shame and ignominy are soft words for the ruin and bankruptcy, the horrible disgrace. It is the end of everything, the hellish despair, the Judgment Day. …”
The Dutchman had flung back his mighty torso more and more, his kingly head sank lower on his breast, he seemed to be dozing as he talked. But with the last word he lifted the fist that had been lying relaxed on the table, and brought it down with a crash, making our slim young Hans Castorp, overwrought as he was with wine and play, and the singularity of the whole scene, jump, and in startled awe look at the mighty one. “The Judgment Day!” How the phrase suited the man! Hans Castorp did not remember ever hearing it uttered, except perhaps at catechism. And no wonder, he said to himself. Who else would have thought of using it like that—or, more correctly, who would have been big enough to take the thunderbolt in his mouth? Naphta, perhaps, when he talked his vindictive rubbish—but it would have been cheek. Whereas Peeperkorn’s utterance seemed to hold the sound of the last trump, majestic, biblical. “Good Lord, what a personality!” he felt for the hundredth time. “At last I’ve come in contact with a real character—and it turns out to be Clavdia’s—.” Not too clearheaded himself, he turned his wineglass about on the table, one hand in his trouser pocket, one eye clipped shut against the smoke of the cigarette he held in the corner of his mouth. Certainly he would have done better to keep quiet. What was his feeble pipe, after the rolling thunder of Jove? But his two democratic mentors had trained him to discussion—for they were both democratic, though one of them struggled against it—and habit betrayed him into one of his naive commentaries.
“Your remarks, Mynheer Peeperkorn,” (what an expression! Does one make “remarks” about the Day of Judgment?) “lead back my mind to what you said previously about vice: that it consists in an affront to the simple, what you call the holy, or, as I might say, the classic, gifts which life offers us; the larger gifts, by contrast with the later and ‘cultivated’ ones, the refinements, which you ‘indulge in,’ as one of us put it, whereas one ‘consecrates oneself’ to the great gifts and pays them homage. But just here, it seems to me, lies the excuse for vice (you must pardon me, but I incline by nature to excuses, though there is nothing ‘large’ about them—I am quite clear on that point) in so far as it is a result of impotence. About the horrors of impotence you have said things of such magnitude that I am quite confounded, as you see me sit here. But in my view, a vicious man appears not at all insensible of your horrors; on the contrary he does them full justice, since it is the abdication of his feelings before the classical gifts of life that drives him to vice. Thus we need not see in vice any affront to life, it may just as well be regarded as homage to it; on the other hand, so far as the refinements represents timulantia, as they say—means of excitation or intoxication—so far as they sustain or increase the power to feel, then
